03 March 2019 10:17 AM

The State Seizes Yet More Power From Parents - and it is the Tories who are responsible

Revolutionaries love to indoctrinate children. You can look up yourself who said these words ‘When an opponent declares, “I will not come over to your side,” I calmly say, “Your child belongs to us already... What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.”

But it does not really matter who it was. It is horribly true, and it is what all these meddlers think, and why they are all so keen on getting control of schools and youth movements.

This week, they took a great step towards their goal, which is the eradication of all that is left of conservative Christian opinion in this country.

Some of you will be astonished (I am not) that it was a nominally Conservative government which last week announced the extension of compulsory ‘relationship’ education and ‘sex education’ throughout the school system.

Of course, in our innocence-free society, there is nobody over the age of about seven who does not know how babies are made. This ‘education’ will be about what to think, not what to do. If you can ever get your own children’s schools to disgorge the material they are using, you will find that it will cover the whole broad front of sexual liberation from condoms to sex-changes.

Many beliefs will become unsayable, and so unthinkable. It is already the case, for instance, that you will be greeted with shock and anger in most schools if you say that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that it is better than alternative forms of family.

If you are wise, you will not risk saying any such thing. Here’s a small illustration of how much narrower the range of permitted speech is than it used to be. It is now 20 years since Channel Four launched its TVdrama series ‘Queer as Folk’, in which the main characters were homosexuals.

I was asked to watch it, and to comment on it on a TV programme, and said that it was cultural propaganda, intended to persuade viewers that homosexuality was normal behaviour. This sounds about right to me. That’s what it was. But the left-wing commentators who have dug this out of the archives expect present-day readers to be shocked that anyone ever had the nerve to say any such thing.

If I live another twenty years, the fact that I ever dared to say and think this will certainly be used to try to keep me off the internet, and quite possibly to prosecute me. If you think I am joking, stick around. The Times columnist Janice Turner, miles to the left of me, is already feeling the cold breath of the thought police on her neck, for bravely resisting conformism on the Transgender issue.

This will happen because of this compulsory indoctrination in school, approved by a man called Damian Hinds, of whom almost nothing interesting is known, who has somehow become Secretary of State for Education.

Mr Hinds has openly broken a clear pledge given two years ago by a Tory government. The genuinely conservative MP Edward Leigh asked him a quietly devastating question in Parliament ‘All previous Conservative Governments … have given an untrammelled right to parents to remove their children from sex education, but here, in certain circumstances, that right has been transferred to the head teacher—a fundamental shift of power to the state. How does that square with what Edward Timpson, the then Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families, said during the passage of the Children and Social Work Bill? He said:

“We have committed to retain a right to withdraw from sex education in RSE, because parents should have the right, if they wish, to teach sex education themselves in a way that is consistent with their values.”’

Mr Hinds did not answer it. So another Tory MP who doesn’t toe the line, Julian Lewis, pressed the point: ‘He keeps adding the words, “unless there are exceptional circumstances”. Why have those words been added? In what circumstances would ​a head teacher overrule a parent? Is not the likely effect of this going to be that in some cases, instead of children getting necessary sex education in schools, more parents are going to keep their children out of school?’ Mr Hinds avoided that too. The law now sides with the state against the parent, and that is that.

And this was the moment at which a vital freedom died. The 1980 prophecy of that appalling fanatic Lady Helen Brook ‘From birth till death it is now the privilege of the parental State to take major decisions - objective, unemotional, the State weighs up what is best for the child’ has now come true, and under a Tory government propped up by supposedly ultra-conservative Ulstermen.

I quite understand why people don’t fancy having Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister. But if this sort of Trotskyist cultural revolution carries on while the Tories are in office, I am not sure it will make all that much difference.

MPs now see at first hand how feeble our justice system is

I hope that the MP Fiona Onasanya will soon turn up in the House of Commons wearing an electronic tag. This is because it will be educational for all the other MPs, who will then find out what everyone else has known for years - that our criminal justice system is made of cardboard.

I don’t really care all that much about Ms Onasanya. I’m even prepared to accept that she may be innocent (as she says she is) of the charge of which she was convicted, perverting the course of justice. But the facts are these. She was sentenced to three months in prison for what many would see as a very serious offence. And she was out after 28 days.

Prison sentences, even when they are imposed, are more or less fictional. And the really odd thing is that it is precisely this weakness which persuades so many people that they too will get away with crime. And so they break the law, in such numbers that even our absent police and feeble courts have to catch and imprison some of them. And that is why the prisons are so full. And that is why the sentences are so short and why prisoners are let out so quickly. Which is why….well, it reminds me of that old song ‘There’s a Hole in My Bucket’.

Oxford interviews some overseas applicants by telephone

Did you know that Oxford University sometimes interviews would-be overseas students by telephone? Nor did I. I thought a gruelling face-to-face meeting was unavoidable. I am fascinated by news that the number of UK students at Oxbridge is falling, while the number of foreign undergraduates is up. I am assured, however, that there is no connection between this development and the fact that non-EU students pay fees of up to £30,000 a year while tuition fees are capped at £9,250 a year for British and EU students. It is good to know that our great institutions are not influenced by the money-making frenzy which seems to have so many of our universities in its grip.

At least they can't pretend nobody warned them about marijuana

The government has now provided its entirely useless response to the petition which thousands of you so kindly signed, asking for an inquiry into the apparent link between marijuana and violence. Here it is:

It appears to have been written by a computer, wholly unaware of the fact that the police have stopped enforcing the drug laws. Even so, some good has been done. When the crisis is so bad and bloody that even ministers can see it, they won’t be able to pretend that they weren’t warned.

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Shame that I never got round to signing that petition when you first promoted it, I still could, though way where will it hit the 100 thousand mark. As you so well pointed out they'd just give out some automated response like an answering machine. When of course what is really needed is for the police to do their job. Though people like to convince it's as harmless as a kitten.
To be fair we are already a bloody mess, the difference of rate will be factor if and when big dope gets their way. Though naturally it will be seen as "Muslims" at fault not having our highly liberal vaules

@ Mrs B
You say thank goodness you had your children in the 70s... and I say thank goodness none of your children are gay! They would most likely have been horrendously bullied at school in the 70s an 80s. Remember, those were the days of Thatcher and the appalling section 28 law. Institutional homophobia! Although having said that, if one of your children had been bullied for being gay, maybe you would have a better understanding of what schools are trying to achieve with their sex and relationship education and you would not be trying to stop them.

Watching Piament the other day I tuned to see a male Labour M.P. get into what I could only think of in terms us ordinary folk use. " A right old hissy fit".
Why ? Because he wasn't happ that Andrea Leadsom had earlier suggested parents would still hold still hold parental responiility if they wanted young to attend new sex education, relationship classes or not.

Dear Mr. Thomas,
I've no idea why but my original reply, thanking you for your good wishes disappeared into the digital ether so I'll briefly repeat it here.

Thank you also for the good advice on matters from golf to mixed walking groups. For me one of the joys of walking in places like Dartmoor, is the opportunity to be alone on this overcrowded little island.

I'm running late in responding to the splendid news that you have recently retired (unhurt, is to be hoped!) One of the reasons I'm late is that I was aware that I had seen the item, but couldn't remember on which thread I had seen it. This might be due in part to the fact that I retired some 19 years ago...

Whatever, well done and a very happy retirement to you.

I only have a few items that could be considered advice; do not accept any invitation from a lady to 'join our bridge group without carrying out some basic investigation as to the current status of said lady and a 'quiet word in the ear' with the odd worldly gentleman member.
Likewise, be cautious before accepting invitations from mixed-sex walking clubs. Assisting ladies, of any age, to clamber over styles can prove dangerous!

In reply to Joshua Wooderson John Vernau posted | 09 March 2019 at 12:35 AM:

> "historical legal proscription of a certain act, which, incidentally, was also proscribed between the sexes; it was a law of equal ‘inopportunity’."

---

Yes, it was also prescribed between the sexes.

Which is yet more evidence of media, especially BBC, "liberal" bias, as, despite the fact it didn't really apply to lesbians (bisexual women maybe), and applied to all heterosexual men and women, it is the law that they base their continual whinging Fake News propaganda that supposedly homosexuals and homosexuality (or at best homosexual sex), were illegal!

However, despite it being a universally applicable crime (except, in practice to all female homosexuals), the punishment wasn't always equal.

> Posted by: Charlie B | 03 March 2019 at 10:52 PM:
> @Doreen Smyth
> "The reason children are taught to accept same sex displays of affection in public is that objection to such displays of affection is equal to harassment and should be reported to the police. If it was up to me, kids confronting gay couples in such a way should get a good slapping!"

----

Or, better still, a "Punch In The Face" a la "Anti"Fa and all other good "liberals", eh?!

The reason children were taught to accept same nation, people, culture, colour or values displays of affection in public is that objection to such displays of affection is equal to harassment and should be reported to the police.

If it was up to me, kids, or adults, confronting Pro-life supporters, MAGA hat wearers, Trump, Farage or Brexit voters, (red remembrance) poppy or our troop respecters, Christian religion followers, traditional and family values promoters, etc, "in such a way should get a good slapping"!

You're not even in the sixth form yet, are you?!

I wonder if you also think those who teach kids that confronting gay couples with defenestration, throwing from the roof of a handy local tower block, or just a good, old fashioned tower crane hanging, stoning or immolation, "should get a good slapping too!"?

Or should they get a worse punishment?

Or just be tolerated, accepted, perhaps even supported, because to object would be harassment (especially if it's from a "minority" or "a" religion) and should be reported to the police?!

> Posted by: Mike B | 03 March 2019 at 04:37 PM:
> "However, in other regards, homosexuals should not be treated in a discriminatory manner, any more than those affected by other physical or psychological traits which fall outside the norm and I fail to see how anybody can be opposed to those who favour that young people be taught tolerance for those so afflicted."
> "Doubtless, the word "afflicted" will cause offence in some quarters, but I do consider it an affliction and, as is often said, nobody has the right not to be offended."

----

That, however, is exactly the problem.

Children are taught that whites, Christians, men, the old and anyone who doesn't 100% agree with prevailing orthodoxy and dogma SHOULD BE treated in a discriminatory manner!

Just because those traits supposedly fall outside the norm (so why aren't THEY the protected minorities?!).

I fail to see how anybody can be opposed to those.

I favour that young people be taught tolerance for those so "afflicted".

Doubtless, the word "afflicted" will cause offence in some quarters, but I do consider it an affliction these days to be normal.

And, as is often said, nobody has the right not to be offended, so why are the vast majority: women, the disabled, non whites, non Christians, non historic British, and the LGBTQWERTY+ lobbies allowed to be offended by the mere existence of the "abnormal" stale pale straight male minority?!

Does Charlie B think his or her beliefs are more important than the wellbeing of straight and white young people?

Does s/he not know that social attitudes critical of whites, males and heterosexual relationships, and claims that they are of lesser value than non-whites, females, and homosexual relationships, are causing bullying, discrimination and hate crime, not to mention school drop outs, failure to pursue academic studies, inability to obtain work, knife crime, and five times the homelessness, mental illness, and suicide rate of women?

Or does s/he not acknowledge it? Or does "it" [in original] simply not care?

Does she or he not agree that teaching in schools should be aimed at reducing bullying, discrimination and hate crime?

Where is the celebration of maleness, manhood, hetero pride and white lives matter too?!

“... the adjective ‘homosexual’ ... I took it to be implicit in our discussion that we were using the term to discuss exclusively relations between consenting adults... “
“... when I say I think that homosexuality should enjoy whole-hearted social acceptance, I mean ... in the context of monogamous relationships between consenting adults.”

With this implication and in this context my argument is nonsensical. The adjective “homosexual” is indeed rather slippery. I was using it in the sense “being sexually attracted only by persons of one’s own sex” (Concise Oxford from last century). The roughly contemporaneous Shorter OED has “Having a sexual propensity for persons of one’s own sex”, which I would guess describes a larger cohort. In any case I had not assumed that homosexual men and pederasts were necessarily mutually exclusive categories.

“... I don’t see why acceptance of homosexuality makes pederasty more likely any more than acceptance of heterosexuality makes more likely [ ... ] the equivalent for adolescent girls.”

Nor do I. But if heterosexual activity were to be proscribed the consequences would be different.

Anyone who has ever cared for young children will know the rates at which they understand things or want to know or ask questions.
They are happy with simple answers and yet the fashion has become for adults to see the need to enlarge and widen what they are told, to overload them in what should be a time when they don't need such a large focus on things.
As younger and younger children attend nursery and pre school the system wants to treat them under one umbrella..
Children have different levels and needs.
At home this was easy to see and teach accordingly. More emphasis on basic, " school readiness".We have a situation now wher many can't use a knife and fork, or are clean and out of nappies by school at 5.
Wtite their name or can't do up buttons or tie laces.
Adults, teachers have got the priorities very wrong.

Alan Thomas
I see you are watching that great, "Reality programme", Parliament.
Were you viewing last night, when Mrs.May told M.P's that they were at risk of no Brexit at all and cheer from a very large number went up?
More telling than the tellers..
A very big insight into the contempt being shown to the result of the democratic vote.
They want another refereundum?
What the heck is the point, when they don't adhere to the original?
They obviously think old Blair has worked on Macron wheedling away for anoher go.
So sure of the result?
Then there are the May, M.E.P. elections. A great time for an ignored public to kick back.
Be careful what you wish for. Didn't that great mathematician Diane Abbot, say they very same thing?
Then you have Ministers still on salary and with ministerial cars, for voting against the government.
One rule for one, one for another. Things have gone so low.
Did you see the spat between Soubry and Gove?
Gosh that lady goes on and on and on.

Oh, what a night; what a glorious night
What a wondrous sight
I have never seen aught of the sort!
There was Soubry and Cooper and hundreds more howling; dangling; hoist on their own petards!
Cheering their five solid victories over Theresa, they, the EU ‘Remainers, not only betrayed the nation’s democratic rights they showed their contempt for the laws of their own making - and then the penny finally dropped!
Those ‘victorious traitors’, who have constantly claimed that we ‘Leavers’ didn’t understand what we voted for when we chose Brexit, showed the world that they were the ones who didn’t know what they had voted for! *They* were the turkeys voting for Christmas and how they pitifully cried and begged their ‘friendly enabler’, Mr Speaker, who turned his own back-stabbing back, powerless to help them in their desperate self-inflicted plight.
I predict; we will ‘clean-break’ leave the EU at the end of this month; : hundreds of MP’s will lose their seats at the next election; and, The Right Honourable, Mrs Theresa May will go down in history as the greatest Prime Minister this country has ever seen when at least 17.4 million *all-party* patriotic voters vote her and her party back into power again.
A true, patriotic and democratic Conservative Party is about to be resurrected, Mr Hitchens, stand for election and join with them, please!

I too have been watching the debates from the House of Commons, one of the perks of my recent retirement has been the ability to watch afternoon debates in real time rather than just the carefully edited and highly slanted soundbites that the news likes to feed us. Although yesterday was like watching a three hour movie, even though we all know how it ends, one amusing aspect was watching all the players doing their best to act as if they didn't.

Watching complete debates unedited gives a much better image of how business is conducted in the House. The relationship between members on both sides is much more co-operative and courteous than that seen at PMQs, which is the House of Commons at its worst. What a shame that's all most people (including embarrassingly, foreign viewers) ever get to see. Although the most abiding impression I get from all these broadcasts is that John Bercow is a vain, self-regarding windbag, who struts and preens himself like a fifth form prefect who, even after ten years as Speaker is still quite intoxicated by the novelty his power.

That is of little help, I'm afraid. I'm still in a slight state of shock having decided to watch the great debate yesterday afternoon for a short spell, only arising after the vote shortly after seven o'clock. Such drama, and another further vote due today!
Where will it all end, I wonder... (Hopefully, not another six-on-the-trot posts from Rd!)

One thing that did impress me was that all the arguments, well, a least most of them, were conducted in a manner that didn't leave me wondering what the hell the speaker was on about!

John Vernau – I don’t seek to limit the use of the adjective ‘homosexual’ in any way, but I took it to be implicit in our discussion that we were using the term to discuss exclusively relations between consenting adults, since it’s a given that I don’t approve of sexual relationships (homosexual or otherwise) involving children.

Had I condemned the acceptance of heterosexuality and, when pressed as to why I condemned it, pointed out that sexual relationships with underage girls are technically heterosexual, you would probably have thought me odd and rather pedantic. For the avoidance of doubt, then, when I say I think that homosexuality should enjoy whole-hearted social acceptance, I mean on the same terms as I think heterosexuality should: in the context of monogamous relationships between consenting adults.

‘Surely you must agree that if all homosexual activity is reduced, by social stigma or legislation, for example, then acts of pederasty are reduced.’

I don’t see this as at all obvious, since presumably those who flout our current laws regarding the age of consent would be more likely to flout laws and norms forbidding homosexual relationships in general. One could even make an argument, akin to the argument for legalising prostitution, that driving homosexuality underground would make impressionable boys and young men more vulnerable to abuse.

In any case, I don’t see why acceptance of homosexuality makes pederasty more likely any more than acceptance of heterosexuality makes more likely the acceptance of the equivalent for adolescent girls.

"The map is not the territory, the word is not the thing it describes."

If I had any idea what that is meant to mean, I'm sure I could drum up a response.

Or, as a one-time regular contributor here gently said to those who frequently seek the academic high ground when involved in debate, 'would it not be better to respond in language that the average 16-year old could understand?'

Posted by: Alan Thomas | 12 March 2019 at 02:23 PM

Oh dear! What an admission, Mr Thomas. Do you really not understand that simple concept? There's really no need to 'drum up a response' as you put it. Just to understand that it's true.

May was told to replace. She decided to ignore Parliament and ask for minor changes then diluted this further and asked for changes to arbitration!

In November she promised legally binding changes when she pulled the vote. She has failed when she brought it back and got the worst defeat in history and now the same she has failed to ask let alone get any legally binding changes to date!

She also promised to change the negotiating team when they voted for the Brady Amendment. Then she didn’t.

We read today that under the EU defence directive the U.K. is bound to award a Spanish company the contract to build auxiliary ships for U.K. Navy.

If the UK leaves without Mays servitude plan the contract can be awarded to UK. firms, particularly Scottish. Why is this not highlighted by all those remainer MPs who want jobs for this country! Moreover, why is the SNP not shouting this from the roof tops and pressuring the government to give the contract to Scottish dockyards.

JR, you still fail to state unequivocally why May has agreed the servitude plan with the EU? It is a terrible deal yet she and Hammond are now pressurising MPs to accept what sort of remain they want, even though hers has a false label. Her underhand behaviour used at every turn to create her servitude plan then underhandedly bounce her bad servitude plan through parliament. Please tell us her motives and why she has done this?

John, the entire political class need a good talking to and a reality check by someone who is not also a politicians. Collectively they have wilfully thrown away all our negotiation leverage and collectively committed mass treason. They must surely know this, even Labour Remain supporters must now realize what they have done and hang their heads in shame? Now is the time for Parliament to be dissolved and collectively resign.

A hardened Remainer, Mrs. May, and a Parliament mainly composed of MPs who prefer legislation to come from unelected and un-removable bureaucrats in Brussels rather than from themselves, do not want to enact the result of the EU referendum and have deliberately thrown away all our cards and given the all the “negotiating” powers to the EU.

The Conservative Party will be held responsible in the future for electing Mrs. May and thus putting the UK into such a dangerous and exposed position where, if the WA goes through, we will be accepting laws and taxes over which we have no say or exit (even after Mrs. May’s/the EU’s last night’s pre-planned dash to Strasbourg and press conference.)

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